DH threatened to throw a spider in my face

[Cupofteaformeee]

I am extremely phobic of spiders. 🕷️

I’ll try and keep this brief - DH is a STBEXH as I’m making plans to leave due to EA and VA. I’ve started writing everything he’s done or said to me and I’m seeking opinions on his behaviour.

Around a year ago we were both in the living room and a huge spider ran across the floor. I stood on the couch and shouted for DH to please please get rid of the spider. He’s not scared of them. He was gaming at the time and replied saying “Don’t tell me what to do” I begged him, please please get the spider and he shouted that if I scream at him one more time he would pick the spider up and throw it in my face. 😦

Opinions please?? His threat has stayed with me ever since.

Oh cut it out, shouting in fear for your husband to help you is now a crime? It's not like she was shouting at him for not doing the dishes or something.

If she has a phobia for something you don't really think she her priority is regulating how she shouts and screams? You think people who are so scared of clowns they faint will take the time to regulate their responses so their husbands don't get upset?

Her reaction was a natural response to something she has a phobia for. You do know what a phobia is right? It's not just oh I don't like spiders, it's a lot more than that.

And she we don't screaming demands, she was screaming in panic and fear for her husband to help her and any compassionate person who knows his wifes I tense fear of spiders would take the 2 minutes to help her but I guess his game was more important.

This is from a quick Google search to educate you a little bit to have some compassion and consideration for people with such phobias unless you think she is lying about her phobia for spiders. Claiming her reaction was OTT shows you either don't believe phobia for spiders is real or not that serious.

The fear of spiders is called arachnophobia. It's an intense, irrational fear that can cause a range of symptoms, including:
Upset stomach or feeling "butterflies"
Dizziness or feeling faint
Dry mouth
Crying, tantrums, freezing, or clinging
Sweating and nausea

Arachnophobia can be triggered by:
Seeing a spider or spider web, in person or in pictures
Thinking about spiders or spider webs
Speaking about spiders or spider webs

Here is a reddit post from someone with a phobia of spiders so OPs reaction was even milder but I guess you will claim this person is just an attention seeker right?

https://www.reddit.com/r/Arachnophobia/comments/1dywrkj/extremearachnophobia/

@LoremIpsumCici

I'm scared of cellar spiders only - all others are fine because they're easy to see - but those ones I can't cope and become convinced they're on me and start taking my clothes off in panic. I can't remove myself to find someone to help me because if it goes missing in the house then I have to either stay in a hotel or sleep outside in the car etc.

My husband and I now have a bit of a routine where I don't scream anymore because he reacts so damn quickly if I find one.

Since these spiders are usually upside down, certain furniture that doesn't go completely to the ground aren't allowed, and I shine a torch under chairs and tables before sitting down.

I really don't know where this fear came from - I've eaten tarantula abroad and put wasps outside with my bare hands, and I've been in violent relationships - but if my husband ever threatened throwing one of those cellar spiders in my face it'd be the fucking end of our marriage

I really hate when posters say things like this. It is so condescending and usually untrue. You can have experienced emotional abuse and also think that one specific scenario doesn’t quite amount to emotional abuse.

My mom cured me of my arachnophobia by locking me in a dirt floor cellar crawling with hundreds of them overnight. This was in Pennsylvania where black widows and brown recluse spiders are common- and one bite can be lethal to a child. She had asked me to go down with the vacuum and suck them up, but I had panicked and cried and said no, please don’t make me. So she grabbed me, dragged me into the cellar, locked me down there, and then spitefully turned off the light as the light switch was upstairs. I was left down there in the pitch dark until the next day. I survived by crawling into the tumble dryer holding the door open just the width of my fingertips so I could breathe. I was a very skinny and small 8yr old. I pissed myself at one point, and then it dried. The next day, she comes down and asks me, you ready to vacuum up the spiders now? And I was. I had to vacuum all the rafters and corners of the cellar before she let me upstairs to eat and wash and get clean clothes.

You will be glad to know I helped my DD get over her arachnophobia through professional gentle therapy instead of my mum’s ‘tough love’ method.

educate you a little bit to have some compassion and consideration for people with such phobias

Perhaps, in return for your thoughtfulness, I should post some links on abuse, you know to educate you a bit more.

Not everything is down to a person being uneducated, sometimes we just have a difference of opinion.

I was terrified of spiders from an early age. I had this recurring lucid nightmare where I would wake up and couldn’t move because my entire blanket was covered in red spiders. The weight of them trapped me. Then they would shuffle to make a path and a giant red spider with little red baby spiders started to come slowly up from my toes towards my head and it always felt to me that I’d been hunted as food for the baby spiders and they were going to crawl into my mouth, nose, eyes, ears and when the big giant spider stopped on my chest and the baby spiders started streaming down…I’d wake up screaming my head off and often having wet the bed.

My mom really hated when I wet the bed.

Today, I can handle one spider. I admit I sometimes still panic and it gets smashed instead of retrieved- especially if it takes a run towards me. I’d do anything for my DC, protecting them from spiders is the opposite of what my mom did which is literally throw me into a den of spiders.

So, I think a blustery threat that probably would not be carried out of stop screaming or the spider gets thrown at your face while mean, isn’t to the level of abuse (like some of the other examples clearly are). That’s my opinion and it is equally as educated as anyone else’s on here.